Thousands of voters swarmed the offices of the Commission on Elections in different areas in the province on deadline day.

As of August, Comelec-Bohol still had to track down 41,270 voters who had no or incomplete data.

As of the middle of October, the margin reduced to around 30,000 voters. However, barely 20,000 beat the deadline yesterday even as the Comelec extended office hours up to 9 p.m.

Provincial Election Supervisor Eliseo Labaria said they expected at least 757,144 voters in entire Bohol based on the data in the previous elections, aside from the new voters.

So far, the turnout was only between 750,000 and 755,000 as of the last count.

The turnout from the final week will be consolidated and be known this week.

Labaria blamed the voters for the habit of waiting for the last minute, resulting to a bottleneck in the last week of the registration period.

In the final stretch last week, Comelec offices extended office hours from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.

Comelec-Tagbilaran even accommodated satellite registration at the Bohol Cultural Center until Thursday, and continued at their office on Friday and Saturday.

Labaria said Comelec ran the voters’ registration and biometrics capturing process for over a year already, but voters only rushed on deadline week.

He explained that every Comelec office could only accommodate 250 clients a day.

Tagbilaran City has the most number of voters at 54,100 in the record, but was the first to complete the offsite registration as of August, followed by the towns of Antequera, Sevilla, Baclayon, Loon and San Isidro.

Labaria reminded the voters that those who failed to validate their registration by having their biometrics captured will not be allowed to vote in May 2016 elections.

With the biometrics data of voters, Labaria said those who registered in more one area will have their registration invalidated and will not be allowed to vote.

Comelec will be match biometrics data of registered voters and those that would be found out to be registered in more than one area will be cancelled to prevent flying voters.